Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Quick question, would anyone else here think that a GW store being empty on Boxing day would be a bad sign?

What about a GW with massive floor space compared to the usual ones (I'm talking two and a half times the size of the average one man store) but only one single 6x4 table?

I'm just interstate for the holidays and heard my old home town got a GW in the last couple of years so I popped in. The manager said they had a solid community but I saw no signs of that. They only had two display cases as well, the small kind, and they weren't full.....

 jonolikespie wrote:
Quick question, would anyone else here think that a GW store being empty on Boxing day would be a bad sign?

What about a GW with massive floor space compared to the usual ones (I'm talking two and a half times the size of the average one man store) but only one single 6x4 table?

I'm just interstate for the holidays and heard my old home town got a GW in the last couple of years so I popped in. The manager said they had a solid community but I saw no signs of that. They only had two display cases as well, the small kind, and they weren't full.....

GW doesn't do reduced prices or sales so I wouldn't be surprised that everyone has gone to other shops for the sales,

A GW with a massive floor space but only 1 table isn't unusual these days. That table is for introducing fresh money to the game. Once they buy their first few box sets, they're cut loose and not allowed in store to play (not true of all, but true of many GW stores).

They will say things to give a positive image, in the same way the Conservatives in the UK say the deficit is reduced by their selling off of public assets (it's actually far greater than it's ever been). After all, a lie is already half way around the world by the time the truth has puts it's trousers on

 jonolikespie wrote:
Quick question, would anyone else here think that a GW store being empty on Boxing day would be a bad sign?

What about a GW with massive floor space compared to the usual ones (I'm talking two and a half times the size of the average one man store) but only one single 6x4 table?

I'm just interstate for the holidays and heard my old home town got a GW in the last couple of years so I popped in. The manager said they had a solid community but I saw no signs of that. They only had two display cases as well, the small kind, and they weren't full.....

I wouldn't expect the period between 23rd December to 1st January to be a good representation of normal business.

 Selym wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Quick question, would anyone else here think that a GW store being empty on Boxing day would be a bad sign?

What about a GW with massive floor space compared to the usual ones (I'm talking two and a half times the size of the average one man store) but only one single 6x4 table?

I'm just interstate for the holidays and heard my old home town got a GW in the last couple of years so I popped in. The manager said they had a solid community but I saw no signs of that. They only had two display cases as well, the small kind, and they weren't full.....

I wouldn't expect the period between 23rd December to 1st January to be a good representation of normal business.

True, but for most companies that time period is still a time of high sales. Everyone is spending their holiday money, the sales are some of the highest out of the entire year, among other factors.

As GW cannot understand the word "sales", I'd be surprised to see GW make much in the way of sales at that time. Sales on the run up to xmas, I'd expect, but around the 23rd to the 1st, I would be surprised to see anyone bother with GW stores at all.

 Melissia wrote:

No. The only thing fun about historical games is defying history, rather than reliving it, and most of the utter garbage that qualify as "historical games" out there don't let you. Fantasy and sci-fi are where it's at. At least they encourage creativity instead of stagnation

Then you'd be wrong.

I've seen far more creativity in historical gaming than I've ever seen in sci fi and fantasy. I've seen a lot of stagnation in the player base - if anything, it's gripped by inertia rather than creativity as a whole,

With respect , you have a very poor understanding of historical games if all you can do is define them as 'reliving history' or 'defying history'. History, frankly, is interesting, it has huge grey areas to explore, and consequently has huge scope for narrative and creativity. It's not necessarily a story that's already been told, or something you 'relive'.

What you describe here specifically is reenactments. And yes. They are a thing. Historicals can be that. Even if it's quite often we don't know exactly what got fielded against what in whatever battle - the historical record is remarkably patchy, misleading or flat out wrong a lot of the time... And let's be honest here - 40k can be as much of a reenactment based game, where people replay, or reinvent many of the iconic battles of the lore - whether it's of the battle of orks drift or any other named battle in the narrative, just as warmachine can be about khador storming point Bourne against cygnar, cryx raiding port vladovar, the battle over the temple garrodh, the battle between cygnar and the protectorate over caspia/sul, any of the named and profiled battles in the lore/expansion books (which literally read like a battle report, so you know precisely what got fielded too) or combined army versus pan-o during the paradiso campaign etc where some of the various order of battle are described either through the lore, or through various official rosters and lists.

But historicals can be so much more than just reenactments as well. And frequently are played as such. They don't have to be reliving a particular battle x. Or y. Take my Normans versus your Vikings or Anglo-Saxons. Imagine a raiding party scenario or any particular story that you find evocative. Over a river ford, town, beach, doomed last stand, defending the breach, or anything else that picks your fancy. Why can't they be striking to rescue a spy or kidnap a particular royal, or other important person of some nameless enemy tribe or enemy force? History is big. There is a huge amount of room there to imagine a premise for a Wargame scenario. No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

The simple truth is that historicals drawn an as much of the 'but, what if', 'yes, this could have happened' and 'wouldn't it be fun if this went up against that' as anything from 40k or any other Wargame. In other words, Normans versus Anglo Saxons and Carthaginians versus Romans is just as open to interpretation as tau versus imperial guard, khador versus cygnar, pan-o versus yu-jing and so on. And frankly. 'What if' scenarios between celts and Mughals which would never have happened historically can be fun. And just as unlikely to be honest as tau versus space wolves (different sides of the 40k galaxy at the end of the day...) or thagrosh1 versus kromac2- champion of the wurm, considering they would never have come across each other in the fluff. Dont be so narrow minded in your definitions of historical gaming. So much of the tapestry that historicals draw on is grey and unknown - we don't know about all the battles thst happened Or even might Have happened in the historical context of the Romans versus the Carthaginians, or the celtiberians, or the Macedonians or Caesar versus the gauls or even a fraction of the battles between the diadachoi thst split Alexander's empire after his death. Heck, or even the Wehrmacht versus the red army. And at the end of the day, what's stopping me doing a Bernard Cornwell or Simon scarrow, and having my own general deadnighticus leading a fictional Roman legion during their conquest of Britain, or having a nameless Norman mercenary and his band of merry men as they fought across Europe during the dark ages? Simply put, there is so much potential there for interesting wargames scenarios thst could have been throughout history that to simply reduce it all to the level of reenactments is being dishonest and just doing yourself a disservice.

The only difference between tau and khador and the Romans at the end of the day is that the Romans are based in a historical narrative, rather than a fictional narrative. From that point, frankly, you can go whatever direction you want. Just as historical fiction/fantasy writers happily go off in their own direction with and against the backdrop of what we know, or think we know, and do a bloody good job of bringing those lost worlds and times to life, we, as wargames players can do exactly the same thing within the context of the narratives and settings we play our games in. They are all woven from the same cloth.

Vouchers, exchanges, Christmas cash...

There's plenty of reasons to go into a GW right now, assuming they're open, even just idle curiosity from bored spouses and partners while they're out braving the sales.

It's a peak time of year for retail, students and schoolchildren, as well as many working age adults, are all on holiday, and likely have plenty of spare hobby time now the festive days proper are done and dusted.

Any GW with a "solid community" would likely have a few people in it, even if it is the summer in opposite land.

I've got a little anecdote for this, so just bear with me a moment.

I've recently(as in just over the past week) got bit by the 40k bug again and started to build lists and dust off the old models that I haven't sold yet and I want to start building up my Iron Warriors list again. I've probably spent at least a day of research and working to make the list what I want and have finally made a list that is what I think of when I hear Iron Warriors. but to build my new army up to 2k, i'm looking at atleast 600 and some change to do so.

And since around 2013 or so, other hobbies (like cosplay) have really become more important to me. And quite frankly the not so FLGS I used to play at seems to be the only game in town for 40k since the one I used to help run alongside my best friend closed up last year due to his health issues.

But I miss wargaming and I've tried the X-wing/armada games, but they just don't have the same feel of what I liked in 40k, putting a TON of plastic on the board and playing armymen with more expensive plastic and some rather meh rules with your friends. I've never been a fan of small scale skirmishes, so the other games that I usually see floating around just don't scratch that itch.

I keep coming back because of the lore and the memories I have of getting beat like I was on fire back when I was playing my old Tau back in 5th(which I sold last year to fund my chaos because I apparently have something against winning ) but when I see less and less people playing in shops and fewer shops even trying to run events( even the Not so FLGS has just about stopped promoting 40k events) It makes me wonder if when the 40k bug bites, if I should just hop on steam and play the Dawn of War games or hop on Vassal(assuming that's still a thing) instead of investing what could be 500 dollars in EVA foam or Fabric for another costume or tickets and provisions for an out of town Convention.

And that's really the question:

Why drop 600-700 bucks into something that your local community no longer supports? If you have a thriving 40k community and you enjoy the game, you'll get your money's worth. But not everywhere seems to have a 40k community like their x-wing Infinity and Warmahordes communities or even their MTG YuGiOh and Pokemon TCG communities.

Right now I've got my 250 points of Iron Warriors and as much as I'd like to place my order with GW and FW for Vindicators and Hell Talons/Blades and the Chaos Knight and all sort of other things that just look awesome, I can't justify that kind of an investment for a game that I most likely won't play more than once every couple months due to lack of local interest.

 Selym wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Quick question, would anyone else here think that a GW store being empty on Boxing day would be a bad sign?

What about a GW with massive floor space compared to the usual ones (I'm talking two and a half times the size of the average one man store) but only one single 6x4 table?

I'm just interstate for the holidays and heard my old home town got a GW in the last couple of years so I popped in. The manager said they had a solid community but I saw no signs of that. They only had two display cases as well, the small kind, and they weren't full.....

I wouldn't expect the period between 23rd December to 1st January to be a good representation of normal business.

Other than the fact that December 27th (The first day they are open after Christmas. I guess they made an exception this year as Boxing Day was on a Saturday) was known amongst GW staffers as "Hell Day" due to the massive amounts of customers buying stuff with Christmas money and/or returning unwanted gifts.

GW stores were known to be packed after Christmas in the past.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Selym wrote:

 jonolikespie wrote:
Quick question, would anyone else here think that a GW store being empty on Boxing day would be a bad sign?

What about a GW with massive floor space compared to the usual ones (I'm talking two and a half times the size of the average one man store) but only one single 6x4 table?

I'm just interstate for the holidays and heard my old home town got a GW in the last couple of years so I popped in. The manager said they had a solid community but I saw no signs of that. They only had two display cases as well, the small kind, and they weren't full.....

I wouldn't expect the period between 23rd December to 1st January to be a good representation of normal business.

Other than the fact that December 27th (The first day they are open after Christmas. I guess they made an exception this year as Boxing Day was on a Saturday) was known amongst GW staffers as "Hell Day" due to the massive amounts of customers buying stuff with Christmas money and/or returning unwanted gifts.

GW stores were known to be packed after Christmas in the past.

My local GW used to be packed every weekend and most evenings. Packed as in you struggled to move in there.
The staff used to make a killing on sales and everyone was happy.
These days it is empty most days and even the weekend crowd is nothing compared to what it was. People have moved on to other games that are cheaper, have better models and are well written and balanced.

Deadnight wrote:
No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

And then the pedants go around bitching about how "oh that's not realistic!" or "oh that's not historical". And there's far, FAR more of them, in my experience, when referencing ANYTHING historical.

 Melissia wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

And then the pedants go around bitching about how "oh that's not realistic!" or "oh that's not historical". And there's far, FAR more of them, in my experience, when referencing ANYTHING historical.

While there are some that do, every hobby has the same morons. 40k has far worse fluff nazis. Your points was....

Noir wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

And then the pedants go around bitching about how "oh that's not realistic!" or "oh that's not historical". And there's far, FAR more of them, in my experience, when referencing ANYTHING historical.

While there are some that do, every hobby has the same morons. 40k has far worse fluff nazis. Your points was....

I'd say Star Trek is worse than history with accuracy.
There's a whole lot that can be done with history. Some history is crazier than most fantasy or sci-fi I've read.
Roman legionnaires fighting Chinese? Check.
Medieval religious fanatics using armored carts and lots of guns? Check. (Hussites)
A siege more lopsided than the one in Return of the king? Check. (Siege of Malta...and actually that battle in Return of the King was actually copied from history. Siege of Vienna by the Turks.)

Noir wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

And then the pedants go around bitching about how "oh that's not realistic!" or "oh that's not historical". And there's far, FAR more of them, in my experience, when referencing ANYTHING historical.

While there are some that do, every hobby has the same morons. 40k has far worse fluff nazis. Your points was....

Are WW2 historical pedants nazi fluff nazis?

 Melissia wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

And then the pedants go around bitching about how "oh that's not realistic!" or "oh that's not historical". And there's far, FAR more of them, in my experience, when referencing ANYTHING historical.

And so what if they do?

Those are 'rivet counters' and they're the butt end of a lot of jokes in the historical community, and by no means a representation. There's certainly not far more of them, certainly in my experience abs those that I know. They're a bad joke, if anything

And certainly no worse than the arguments, excuses and gnashing of teeth you see from all sorts of 40k pedants, be them fluff nazis, power gamers, casual at all costs players Waac and tfg gamers and so on. Or trying to define the entire community and it's games based on them,

Just go mention 'can I play forgeworld' or 'is my eldar ok' to hear the howls of anguish,

So I'm afraid your point doesn't stand up as well as you'd like it to. Historicals are fun.

 Melissia wrote:

Deadnight wrote:
No different to any narrative you can create in a sci fi or fantasy game really.

And then the pedants go around bitching about how "oh that's not realistic!" or "oh that's not historical". And there's far, FAR more of them, in my experience, when referencing ANYTHING historical.

This is an interesting angle to view historicals, but the thread actually is about 40K.

[edit: delete, my bad, I responded in order of reading the posts, didn't see mod's warning until just now. ]

Personally I don't think it is dying, it is just going through what everything does. It was the biggest and only one on the block. Other people move in and take part of the market share because it offers greater appeal to them. GW made a bunch of mistakes as a result of being the biggest it could get away with things. Now they are slowly taking steps to rectify their errors like the new cheaper starter boxes thst are coming out, vouchers, electronic items, updates instead of full replacements, rules in the boxes, etc

 Leth wrote:
Personally I don't think it is dying, it is just going through what everything does. It was the biggest and only one on the block. Other people move in and take part of the market share because it offers greater appeal to them. GW made a bunch of mistakes as a result of being the biggest it could get away with things. Now they are slowly taking steps to rectify their errors like the new cheaper starter boxes thst are coming out, vouchers, electronic items, updates instead of full replacements, rules in the boxes, etc

The problem is that most of that is either band-aid stuff or is half of what's driving people away. Electronic items have several problems. Web-only sales means stuff is sold out in minutes before many ever have a chance to buy and their local stores don't get any in and the e-books are monstrously overpriced for providing what every other tabletop gaming company provides for free (or priced at half or less what GW charges). Update books instead of full replacements will leave armies that are in desperate need of an update will be in even worse shape.The "cheaper" start boxes coming out are, in most cases, just returning to what prices *used* to be for the same products just a couple of years ago, some still not even matching that.

I think what we're seeing at the moment is the impact of the Apocaypsation of 40K filtering through to the pick up games at clubs and shops
While the sandbox nature of 40K (and AoS) works fine for the basement gamer, it doesn't work very well for pick up games. Interestingly the games that do appear to be gaining traction are those that try to embrace pick up games via organised play.

The thing with GW that always baffles me is that it often seems to actively want to push different types of gamer away from it's games - first the tournament player, now the pick up gamer.
I wonder if GW knows it's market well enough that it thinks it can sustain itself with the basement gamers and collectors.

Bartali wrote:
I think what we're seeing at the moment is the impact of the Apocaypsation of 40K filtering through to the pick up games at clubs and shops
While the sandbox nature of 40K (and AoS) works fine for the basement gamer, it doesn't work very well for pick up games. Interestingly the games that do appear to be gaining traction are those that try to embrace pick up games via organised play.

The thing with GW that always baffles me is that it often seems to actively want to push different types of gamer away from it's games - first the tournament player, now the pick up gamer.
I wonder if GW knows it's market well enough that it thinks it can sustain itself with the basement gamers and collectors.

I think the last few years has been the community struggling to come to terms with this change in the game. In my experience however, were finally comin to a good spot on it. Our local "group" of players congregated around a city wide Fb group has coalesced around a soft "no low" rule for pick up games that works great, and allows people to discuss whether they might want to play with them or not. This edition of 40k is actually great for the age of social media. It's just been a bit rocky as communities are only now finally adapting themselves to the 21st century.

I find it ironic that you talk about communities adapting themselves to the 21st century, whilst GW's policies on marketing and technology seem to be stuck fast in the 80s.

 vipoid wrote:
I find it ironic that you talk about communities adapting themselves to the 21st century, whilst GW's policies on marketing and technology seem to be stuck fast in the 80s.

Maybe, but we're still having a lot of fun with 40k so I don't really give a feth.

That's cool.

A lot of other people aren't having a lot of fun with 40K and would like to discuss why and what could be done about it.

Thanks for staying on topic.

The more I think about 40k, the more I think the largest problem is no set standard game rules. I'm happy Las your city is having success, mine imploded. Pick up games have died off, its all prearranged and never shall the various groups interact. There is outright scorn being levied against some groups for wanting to use LOW or by the book rules. It just silly that what was once a large tournament community has become a Gamers Wastleand of survivors of the 40k fallout.

Meanwhile Dropzone is something all the groups are coming together to play. So clearly the people can play together, but everyone has different visions of 40k. That's a big problem that I see for the success of the game.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's cool.

A lot of other people aren't having a lot of fun with 40K and would like to discuss why and what could be done about it.

Thanks for staying on topic.

I don't see how me sharing a contrary opinion on the topic requires a sarcastic comment from a mod.

Thimn wrote:
The more I think about 40k, the more I think the largest problem is no set standard game rules. I'm happy Las your city is having success, mine imploded. Pick up games have died off, its all prearranged and never shall the various groups interact. There is outright scorn being levied against some groups for wanting to use LOW or by the book rules. It just silly that what was once a large tournament community has become a Gamers Wastleand of survivors of the 40k fallout.

Meanwhile Dropzone is something all the groups are coming together to play. So clearly the people can play together, but everyone has different visions of 40k. That's a big problem that I see for the success of the game.

That sucks to hear. I think that's part of it though, many game groups are still very insular and not ready to compromise in order to widen their avilable player group. That certainly was the case here until the right people got together. I feel like it's either the shift happens or people get fed up with factionalism and move to different games.

 Las wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's cool.

A lot of other people aren't having a lot of fun with 40K and would like to discuss why and what could be done about it.

Thanks for staying on topic.

I don't see how me sharing a contrary opinion on the topic requires a sarcastic comment from a mod.

Possibly it was the way you phrased it.

Intentionally or not, it came across as 'feth you, I got mine'. Which is neither polite, nor constructive.

And the groups have moved on to Warmachine and Dropzone. I see more games of Warmachine being played, and also pick up games, since there is a preset standard of rules. Dropzone is gaining in popularity as more people pick up armies, but those games are mostly prearranged.

It's a shame GW can't see the problem. If you make the system Open you are actually restricting players becuase players want to field all of their shiny toys but it creates balance issues. And each group sees other items to be the problem. So there is no consensus on what to bring or even what rule system to use.

I will be completely honest, diving into Dropzone and Warmachine after so many years of supporting GW feels refreshing. Nice clean rules and no social media ostracism for wanting to play the game a certain way. I would think most of the other players switching would say the same.

All depends on location.

In the DFW area, some shops are VERY 40k heavy, while others are pretty light on it. The shop I go to is one of the big 3 for 40k, every Tuesday it is jam packed, and apoc games happen about once a month. Monthly tournament is always booming, and other tournaments pop up all over the city.

Flames of War is the next biggest game at the LGS I visit, it has a pretty big community. Next, Kings of War has been getting a bunch of players, then Hordes/Warmachine seems to do OK at this shop, and AoS nights are pretty full.

The other local game shops are pretty active as well, from what I can tell on their facebook pages when tournament recaps pop up, same with people LFG at that shop. We have a decent sized facebook group for 40k players in the area that keeps the hobby fresh and active.

There is no sign of any tabletop game going under around here. Even the old Fantasy stuff keeps selling well.

 vipoid wrote:

 Las wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That's cool.

A lot of other people aren't having a lot of fun with 40K and would like to discuss why and what could be done about it.

Thanks for staying on topic.

I don't see how me sharing a contrary opinion on the topic requires a sarcastic comment from a mod.

Possibly it was the way you phrased it.

Intentionally or not, it came across as 'feth you, I got mine'. Which is neither polite, nor constructive.

Yeah, I was being snippy because it's tiring having everything twisted back to how much GW sucks regardless of context. Same as my comment it may not have been intentional, but still.